Month: October 2016

A well-crafted beer is a fine, fine thing indeed. It’s the sort of beverage you savour, enjoying to the utmost. And if you want to make the experience truly complete, you can sip your brew from the appropriate glass.

That’s right: just like wines, certain styles of beer are best served in certain styles of barware. It’s not an absolute perquisite, but it does help show your beer off to its best advantage. There’s a wide range of glasses out there, but here’s a “sample flight” for you!

(Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)

Pint Glasses

Two different types here: US “shaker” pints are simple affairs that hold 16 oz. Their straightforwardness is well suited to many American styles, particularly pale ales.

The British “Nonic pint,” by contrast, holds 20 oz. It’s most distinguished by the lip at its top: not only does this give you a better grip on the glass, it’s helpful when stacking them—as is the case in many cosy British pubs. The extra 4 oz can hold more beer, or accommodate beers with more head—it’s a good all-around, everyday glass.

Flutes

Long, narrow, and slender, these beauties almost look like champagne glasses. Not too far off the mark, they pair well with lambics and fruit beers, as they show off those styles’ lacing, carbonation, and help concentrate their complex aromas.

Tulip

Also good for beers with strong aromatic profiles! The tulip is a stemmed glass: the top pushes out (much like a tulip) and the sides curve down to a bulbous body. Try them with Belgian ales, lambics, Scotch ales, and saisons.

Chalice

Similar to the tulip, but with a wider bowl. This glass works well with heavy, malty beers: bocks, Belgian ales, and stouts!

Weizen

As the name suggests, the weizen is designed for wheat beers. Its long body draws attention to wheat beers’ pale, hazy colour. A bulbous top accommodates their thick heads, and locks in the characteristic banana/bubblegum aromas.

Pilsner

Not unlike the flute glass, a slender and tapered body captures a pilsner’s effervescence. A very versatile glass, it’s great for lagers of all varieties.

Snifter

How many times have we seen a classic movie hero swirling a snifter? Swirling releases aromatic notes. They generally hold 6-8 oz, which makes them a good match for beers with a high ABV. Try them with trippels and quads, imperials and strong ales—even barleywines!

So there you have it—choosing a beer is only part of the fun! Choosing a glass to go with is equally entertaining!

The air is brisk, the leaves are changing. October is well underway, which means that it’s time for the Pumpkin Ale. While the Pumpkin Ale has been on LCBO shelves for a few weeks now, Ed’s version comes out this weekend from the Black Creek Brewery. We know you’ve been looking forward to it, so we’re thrilled that it’s ready!

And this is no “Pumpkin Spice Ale,” either. Ed’s Pumpkin Ale uses real pumpkin puree. One addition during the mashing breaks the pumpkin’s starch into sugar that will be fermented alongside the malt. Another during the boil adds that truly pumpkin-y taste and aroma. Ed’s also added ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and allspice – everything you’d expect in a pumpkin pie. It’s autumn in a glass, perfect for Halloween!

Our LCBO version!

Speaking of Halloween, our Howling Hootenanny weekends are also here: October 22nd/23rd, and 29th/30th. Take the kids trick-or-treating in the village, make creepy crafts to take home, and decorate your own pumpkin. If you need some refreshment after braving the Haunted Maze and testing the Apple Slingshot, come join us in the historic brewery for a fresh sample of Pumpkin Ale!

This week, it’s another special look through our archives. I’ve been enjoying learning new things myself, so here is a great post from my lovely predecessor, Karell. She has some great facts and figures on the business side of 1860s brewing! Enjoy!

–Katie

Just thought I’d share a few interesting facts and figures about the business of brewing beer in Ontario in 1866 and 1867!

Despard Brewery, Picton – Late 19th Century

Did you know….

In 1866 there were 118 commercial breweries in operation in Canada West.

William Street Brewery introduced a locally designed and built mechanical refrigeration unit into their brewery in 1866!

Copeland’s Steam Brewery was producing 7000 gallons of ale a week and malting 20 000 bushels of barley a season in 1866.

O’Keefe’s Brewery introduced a locally designed and built steam engine and boiler into their brewery in 1866. By 1867 their 25 horsepower engine was capable of turning out a staggering 2000 gallons of beer a day. This is equivalent to running a brewery off a large ride-on lawn mower!

There were four ale bottling plants in Toronto by 1867. Independent of the breweries, these include Malcolm Morrison’s Beer Bottling Establishment, and businesses operated by James Leask, Thomas Rutlege, and R.D. Congden.

Some neat facts to share at your next pub trivia night, courtesy of Black Creek Brewery!

PS. Our Pumpkin Ale is coming soon, I promise (and it’s already available in the LCBO)! Watch this space for updates and tasting notes! – Katie

We’re well into fall now, which means that porters and stouts have triumphantly returned to the Black Creek Brewery. Ed’s been working hard on batches of dark beer for the cooler months. Porters and stouts are a personal favourite of mine—but did you know that they also have more iron content than paler beers?

A 2011 study in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture tested 40 beers from all over the world. The researchers found that darker beers had the most free iron content: 121 parts per billion, compared to 92 ppb for pale ales, and 63 ppb for non-alcoholic beers. The study speculated the dark beers’ higher iron content could be related to the malts and/or hops used. This article I found says:

However, pale beer production includes a filtering stage in which diatomaceous earth is used. This sedimentary rock is a porous material with micro-algae used to lighten the beer; it traps the iron, causing its concentrations to decrease.

I’m not sure I agree with this.

Diatomaceous earth is the fossilized remains of diatoms: a form of hard-shelled algae. It works to filter particles from beer (among other things, including fish tanks and swimming pools). However, modern dark beers undergo the same filtering process: it doesn’t matter what colour your beer is, you’re still going to have yeast sediment and hop residue. So linking iron content to filtration process simply doesn’t make sense…

…especially when you look back to the 1800s. Modern-looking beer filtration doesn’t come about until the late nineteenth century. The first diatomaceous earth filter for brewing wasn’t used until 1930, and it didn’t really become prevalent until after WWII. In the 1800s, filtration was pretty well limited to simple hop backs (ours is lined with cheese cloth!) to strain out the hops, and finings like Irish moss and isinglass, which would at least help free-floating particles settle to the vessels’ bottom.

And yet—

And yet, there seems to be a sense among Victorian brewers that porters and stouts are somehow more hale and hearty. “Porter is recommended by medical men to their poor convalescent patients,” writes William Little Tizard, in his treatise on brewing. He goes on to argue that paler beer is easier on patients’ stomachs, but it’s a good indication that darker beers were considered beneficial for the weak and run-down.

Mmmm….stout.

But why?

Part of me would wonder if it’s a trick of the taste buds. Porters and stouts have a higher proportion of more darkly-roasted barley. The longer you kiln barley, the more chocolate/coffee-like flavours it develops. Simply put: it tastes stronger. This is why people brace themselves for Irish dry stouts, even though they’re usually under 5% ABV.

Except that modern study shows there is quantitatively more iron. So I wonder instead if a longer kilning period somehow makes the iron in barley more available for absorption (and there is a surprisingly high level of iron in barley—3.6 mg per 100g, higher than spinach at 2.7 mg/100 g!). From what I can tell, iron content in hops is negligible, and pale beers tend to have more hops anyway…

In any case: whether kilning affects available iron or no, if we feel the darker beers are more fortifying, that might be enough. Maybe share a growler with your friends, and see what you think.